American Samoa…where is that!? Let me start from the beginning. I grew up in a small farm town in Connecticut, went to college down south and after graduation, I moved to Boston. My life was fast paced, routine and filled with amenities. I stumbled upon a volunteer teaching opportunity abroad and said “why not!” I had looked up the Island on the map and almost couldn’t find it! American Samoa is a tiny remote Island in the middle of the South Pacific. I boarded the plane knowing little to nothing about the experience I was about to have.
We arrived in the middle of the night and were driven straight to our volunteer housing by a couple of large friendly Samoan men. It was so dark we were unable to truly see what the Island looked like. That first night was filled with strange sounds. Stray dogs howling and roosters cock-a-doodle-doing all night long. I had a lot of new roommates, of the bug and reptile variety. As the Island awoke I was able to see all the beauty it held. The palm trees crowded the streets and dogs ran wild everywhere.
As I integrated myself into the Island it’s culture I began to realize the people were all… big! Not only their size, but their families, their personalities and most of all their laughter. My first day of school I was welcomed by the principal with a flower lei and a lot of hugs. I was one of 3 “palagis” (or people from off of the Island) working at my school. We were looked up to and almost worshiped. I felt special and kind of famous! My principal was sweet but not informative about my duties. I was told that I was the 11th grade Science teacher just days before the start of the school year. I would have 25 students in each of my 4 classes. I was nervous, but excited for my students to arrive. As they rolled in the door on that first day, they giggled and seemed interested in me. Only a couple of students confidently introduced themselves. “ Malo! My name is Fa’afatai!” is what the first student who spoke to me said. I was so intrigued by their language and behavior I almost forgot I was the teacher! My students took their seats and a sense of fear set in. I was standing in front of a room of 25 very large, very old looking highschoolers who barely spoke my language. We navigated a way to get through to each other and had a great first day getting to know one another. Like I previously mentioned, my school wasn’t informative about what content to teach. I had a rough outline of a curriculum but was expected to create all my own lessons, test and projects with no material to work with. My classroom was equipped with a handful of textbooks and desks, that’s all! The Island was in poverty and it was difficult to come across working technology. Throughout the year I became more and more creative with my lessons. I often incorporated art, song and dance into my class. My students grew to love and understand me and I grew to love and understand them.
The culture in American Samoa was strong. Dancing, rituals and ceremonies were a part of everyday life. Family came first and it wasn’t unusual for school would be canceled due to family matters. A majority of my students had large families, sometimes up to 12 or 13 siblings. An excuse I often got for the reason a student would skip school was “ I had to do my family’s laundry.” As a “palagi” I had to get accustomed to many cultural differences. For example, when passing an elder, it was custom to bow while saying “tu lo” meaning, excuse me. When meeting up with a friend or family it was custom to bring them a gift or food. Speaking of food…food was everything to Samoan people! Food was the staple of their lives, and a lot of it too. I got to try some neat foods such as the traditional palusami and taro. Each Sunday a Samoan family would make an “umu.” This is an underground oven used for cooking a large amount of food for the family. Bananas, breadfruit, pig, taro and fish would get thrown into the handmade oven in the morning and cook all day under banana leaves and lava rocks. The family would enjoy the feast as an early dinner. Just about every day I would get a coconut off a tree and sip on it as my afternoon snack. One day a large storm struck and all the fruit fell off the trees. The streets were littered with fresh avocado, papaya and limes. We went shopping in the streets!
There aren’t enough words to say about American Samoa but I’ll end with this: Integrating myself in a different culture and living so far from home in a world so different from mine was not only eye-opening, but it was challenging and amazing. I had a new experience every day. Go buy that plane ticket!